This mallet is used in the Oktoberfest Brisbane Anzapfen Ceremony (Keg Opening Ceremony)
A sincere "thanks indeed" to Boris & Kim for the opportunity to contribute to the Brisbane festival.

The mallet is made from European Birch, a timber with a wonderful grain and colour that allows an excellent contrast to the pyrography.

 The lettering is produced using a needle nosed solid burning tip.  It is a time consuming process, but it is my preferred tool of choice, as it allows for very accurate and fine detail, with a relatively smooth edge.

Initially I estimated 8 hours to complete all the wording...25 hours later I finished!!
Burning on the edge and end grain means, despite the surface feeling very smooth after sanding, that there are still minute pockets of open cells that can increase the difficulty of burning a line of dots in a straight line.
I could have used a 1mm ball point nib... it would be faster and not as awkward with keeping straight lines (though not completely)... but that texture, in my opinion, is more suited to larger areas of burning.
The needle nosed nib produces a fine texture, that when combined with accurate lines, filling and correct temperature, produces high quality lettering.

When burning lettering, I follow the trace lines away from me... so I am burning forward.
That way I can see the accuracy of the line produced, and by simply raising the nib to see where the trace line is going, I can then burn the next dot accurately.
It is personal preference, via experience, whether to turn the timber so the line is always (reasonably) in front of you, or you can follow the line around any curve, left or right, without deviating due to the grain, or perception of angle, or contour of the timber surface.

Personally, Lettering in dot points is preferable to writing with a ball point nib, because those open cells I mentioned before, as they can cause the ball to stop in that cell and produce an over burnt & oversized 'bump' in the line of the letter or shape.

I find I can use the fine dots to give an even texture, depth, colour that still looks freehand, but is crisp and accurate.